


A Glimpse (here and there)

by Sa_forever



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Whump, eventual reunion fic, free will is a thing for a reason Doctor, may have subconciously channeled that grim panel talk, possible triggers not mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 04:58:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15356778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sa_forever/pseuds/Sa_forever
Summary: You don't get a happily ever after just like that, Doctor.





	A Glimpse (here and there)

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. There's potential triggery stuff briefly mentioned. This chapter reads more like a brief timeline of their first 2 years. If you would like or need to know what exactly those triggers are, please skip to the end notes  
> 2\. Any variations of Tentoo's name, I was trying to be fairly deliberate about. It might give you an insight into how Rose is feeling.  
> 3\. Alec is Tentoo's name for purposes of humanity and legality.  
> 4\. No clue when this will get updated. It's part of an eventual Rose/11 reunion that I'm mentally working my way through, but this could stand by itself.

Rose stared at the chunk of rock that was supposed to be coral. A coral to grow and make their own time and space ship.

They measured it each and every day, to begin with.

After the first two months, Alec (the Doctor) had finally gotten a laser caliper to measure it with better accuracy than the tape measure they were using.

After the first three months, he engineered a quantum ruler, certain that it must just be growing _very_ slowly. But then came the soils and fertilizers and the liquid nutrients.

At the seventh month mark, Alec (the Doctor) would almost growl every time he tried something new, trying to intimidate it enough to work. He placed it in the tank with some earth variety coral. Then he added bamboo, when nothing changed. He was hoping that if they just showed it what it needed to do, it would do it. After the plants, there was a turtle to keep it company. (The turtle was forever banished about a week after procurement, when he caught it trying to gnaw on the coral.)

So he got fish instead.

The fish died. It could've been the coral finally emitting the proper radiation (which earned him an angry and concerned look) or it could have been that after a couple weeks, they _may_ have forgotten to feed them too many times. Alien invasions and possible dangerous tech wait for no fish feedings.

At ten months, he illegally bartered for some even more illegal materials, and then got a lizard. Rose managed to keep the Doctor (Alec) out of jail by the simple virtue of the exceedingly illegal transaction producing something that looked like a toaster.

Eleven months in, the Doctor (Alec) did not get out of bed. She let that go for three whole days, before she jerked his covers off and rolled him out of bed with the fitted sheet.

He was not amused, and she was even less so. There was screaming and accusations. Rose was likened to her mother and before he got really nasty, she decided she'd pluck the wind from his sails. Rose wanted to know if he had gone with her, because he had no other choice. Maybe he only really liked and cared for her when he had a TARDIS. She wasn't just a coral nursery. She had feelings too, and there was so much more to live for.

At eleven months and five days, the Doctor (Alec) didn't take a measurement of the coral.

At one year, he started back up again.

One year and three months, she staged an intervention. There had been mysterious things that the Doctor (Alec) had been leaving on the coral; mysterious things that he wasn't keen on telling Rose about. She finally managed to sneak up on him, and caught him all but sacrificing his own blood and bits of his flesh. (His notebook had further demented plans that were not going to happen.)

At one year and five months, she thought she was pregnant.

One year, five months, and three weeks, she knew she was pregnant. It took her a couple days to screw up the courage, but one year, five months, three weeks, and three days after they were left at Bad Wolf Bay, she told him. The Doctor stopped moping and stopped measuring the coral any chance he got, because he was instead looking at cute little baby booties.

One year, seven months, two weeks, and four days in, she miscarried.  
They both delved into their work. The Doctor could barely comfort her and she had no idea what to say to him. She frequently thought that at least she had the lizard. Pete was awkward and her mother tried to be comforting, but it usually wound up condescending. Some days she couldn't look at Tony.

At two years the coral was a shunned part of their apartment. Rose looked at it and didn't know what to feel. The Doctor (Alec) was on a business trip for a couple days. She plucked the coral from its enclosure and shoved it in her desk drawer. The rest of the contraption, she chucked in the dumpster. When Alec (the Doctor) got back, he didn't say anything, or act differently. He just piled up books where the tank used to be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers that are mentioned: miscarriage, bizarre self-harm, depression
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it/thought it was decent fic! Thank you for taking the time to read this.


End file.
